Yet Another Lithium Battery Fire
From MGUY
via Watts Up With That?
January 31, 2025 at 04:11AM
A research briefing of the study has the title: Antarctic ice shelf kept its cool during the last interglacial period. It says: ‘There is indirect evidence that, during the last interglacial period, about 125,000 years ago, parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreated. An ice core drilled from the ice sheet near the bordering Ronne Ice Shelf suggests that, contrary to some model reconstructions, the ice shelf survived this period at almost its current extent.’ The researchers don’t rule out any future climate state being a problem but ‘suggest that the Ronne Ice Shelf is not likely to melt under current conditions, or even if the planet grows warmer.’
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An international team of Earth and environmental scientists has found evidence that the Ronne Ice Shelf in the West Antarctic did not melt during the last interglacial event, suggesting it could survive modern climate change, says Phys.org.
In their study published in the journal Nature, the team analyzed ice core samples taken from a site near the shelf’s edge. The editors at Nature have also published a Research Briefing summarizing the work.
Environmental scientists have been studying the Ronne Ice Shelf due to its massive size. Prior research has suggested that if it were to break away from the ice cap and melt, the result would be a global rise in sea levels as high as 2 meters—more than enough to flood multiple coastal metropolitan areas around the world.
For their new study, the researchers drilled and removed an ice core down to the level of bedrock (651 meters deep) at Skytrain Ice Rise, near the edge of the Ronne Ice Shelf.
Their thinking was that if the ice shelf had melted the last time the planet experienced higher-than-normal temperatures (due to changes in Earth’s orbit), there would be significantly higher concentrations of sea salt near its edges because it extends out over the water.
But instead of higher concentrations of sea salt, the research team found them to be the same as other parts of the shelf or even lower, suggesting the shelf had not undergone much, if any, melting.
The team also tested for isotopes that carry evidence of weather events in the ice, and found no evidence that the shelf had undergone significant melting.
Full article here.
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Map credit: npr.org
via Tallbloke’s Talkshop
January 31, 2025 at 03:46AM
For some days now locals on Shetland Mainland have noticed that none of the 103 turbines forming the Viking Energy developments have been turning. Most of them seem to have been frozen in one position, and potentially at risk of damage if hit by strong winds from the “wrong” direction. The local press has been contacted by several people about it. Having investigated what’s been going on, the Shetland News now has an article explaining what’s behind yet another period of inactivity on the part of the wind farm.
Thankfully for hard-pressed energy users and taxpayers, the latest downtime hasn’t been the result of SSE (Viking’s owners) milking the system for constraints payments. By way of brief digression, Shetland News also reported earlier this month that SSE received £9.25M in constraints payments for the Viking Energy wind farm, despite opening only in August 2024. They received £2.7M in October alone, finishing in third place for the year, despite only being operational (if so many closures can be described as being operational), behind only Seagreen and Moray East, both offshore wind farms.
However, it has been noted that the constraint payments have been drastically reduced in December and January. It may be that SSE have been told to reduce their constraints claims because of resulting adverse publicity.
In any event, we now have the official explanation for the recent failure of the massively controversial and environmentally unfriendly wind farm. The line is that it “was due to a planned maintenance outage of the 600MW HVDC cable to the Scottish mainland.” I am in no position to gainsay that, but if true, it seems to be remarkably inefficient, given that it started generating power only in August 2024. As Frank Hay, Chairman of Sustainable Shetland, is quoted as saying:
There seems to be a very high number of planned outages for a wind farm that has been operating for less than six months.
He wonders whether Viking Energy is experiencing more problems than SSE Renewables is prepared to admit, and so do I. The latest problems include the fact that 16 out of the 103 turbines on site require aviation lighting but only seven of these lighting units have been operating as they should. The breach of statutory requirements has been reported to the Civil Aviation Authority, so it will be interesting to see what happens next. Article 222 of the Civil Aviation Order 2016 requires any building, structure or erection, the height of which is 150 metres or more above ground level to be fitted with medium intensity steady red lights positioned as close as possible to the top of the obstacle and at intermediate levels spaced so far as practicable equally between the top lights and ground level with an interval of not more than 52 metres.
How can we expect the UK’s lights to be kept on by wind energy when it can’t even comply with its legal obligations to keep safety lights on atop their own turbines? To add one final irony to the whole sorry saga, the wind farm is dependent on back-up energy (translation, possibly batteries, but more likely diesel generators). SSE say they are working with their turbine contractor, Vestas, to “review our back up” power generation options on site should any future extended outages occur.
It’s all really not a good look.
via Climate Scepticism
January 31, 2025 at 02:28AM
Despite a red wave sweeping across America last November, a green wall is descending over part of the country.
via CFACT
January 31, 2025 at 02:06AM
